MPs say 1,000 babies die preventable deaths in England each year

Commons health committee says NHS has reduced baby deaths significantly but could do more to improve safety.

A thousand babies die preventable deaths every year in England because a culture of shifting blame and keeping tight-lipped means lessons are not learned after mistakes happen on NHS maternity wards, a report by MPs has said.

Nearly two in five childbirth units still provide care that is unsafe to some extent, despite maternity care improving in recent years after a series of scandals.

The Health Select Committee praised the NHS for the “impressive” 30% fall in neonatal deaths and 25% drop in stillbirths over the last decade. But the MPs said in the report: “The improvement has come from a low base and if we had the same rate as Sweden approximately 1,000 more babies would survive every year.”

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